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In like manner we find in the spirit world men, women,
beasts of the field, fowls of the air, and vegetation
in boundless and varied forms. These things are
as natural there as they are in earth-life. They
appeal to spirit nature the same as the “natural”
prototype appeals to the mortal senses; and this is
why we may speak of our earth-known friends who are
in the spirit world and of their surroundings in the
manner of mortality.

And what a big world it is! Here are nations,
tribes, races, and families much larger than in earth-life,
and just as varied in all that made them different
in mortality. Here, as in all of God’s creations,
like assemble, dislike keep apart; “for intelligence
cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom;
truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light
cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy,
and claimeth her own.” The righteous in
Paradise have no desire to mingle with the wicked
in the regions of darkness; therefore they go there
only as they may be called to perform some duty.

To the industrious there can be no true pleasure or
rest in idleness; therefore, Paradise furnishes employment
to all its inhabitants. A world of knowledge
is open to them into which they may extend their researches.
Thus they may continue in the ever-widening field of
learning, finding enough to occupy their time and talents.

An arrival in the spirit world brings with him just
what he is when he leaves mortality. The separation
of the spiritual part of the soul from the earthly
body does not essentially change that spirit.
A person takes with him the sum total of the character
he has formed up to that time. Mortal death does
not make a person better or worse; it simply adds to
him one more experience which, no doubt, has a teachable
influence on him. At death, no person is perfect,
even though he is a Saint, and passes into the Paradise
of God. There he must continue the process of
eliminating the weaknesses which he did not wholly
overcome in earth-life. Death will not destroy
the tendency to tell untruths, or change the ungovernable
temper to one which is under perfect control.
Such transformations are not of instant attainment,
but are the result of long, patient endeavor.

As there are gradations of righteousness and intelligences
in the spirit world, there must be a vast field of
usefulness for preaching the gospel, training the
ignorant, and helping the weak. As in the world
of mortality, this work is carried on by those who
have accepted the gospel and who have conformed their
lives to its principles; so in the spirit world, the
righteous find pleasant and profitable employment in
working for the salvation of souls.

And as they work they must needs talk of the glories
of the great plan of salvation, made perfect through
the atonement of the Lord Jesus. That which they
look forward to most keenly, that about which they
talk and sing most fervently is the time when they
also shall follow their Savior through the door of
the resurrection which He has opened for them,—­when
their souls shall be perfectly redeemed, and they shall
be clothed upon with a body of the heavenly order,
a tabernacle incorruptible and immortal with which
to go on into the celestial world.